Jason Horton, Director of Production, BBC Local, tells us the General Election Campaign has been a triumph for BBC local online news. Here's a set of figures that needs explanation: "This year, we’ve strengthened our local online coverage to ensure you can keep up with the local election story wherever you are. In all, more than 130 additional journalists are supporting our coverage – delivering daily updates and special investigative features. The impact with audiences has been remarkable – with over 16m users accessing our local online coverage each week. In May, traffic to BBC Local news online was up almost 4m or 30% on the same month last year."
Remember the general election was only called on 22nd May. During May this blog continued our coverage of the BBC News Online Most Watched feature, consistently bringing forward old news, often regional dashcam footage. Jason doesn't tell us what happened to BBC Local Radio audiences in May. In the first quarter of 2024, they were down 9.6%, year on year.
Today, the last full day of election campaigning, these are the regional stories 'curated' to the front page of BBC News Online at 0945am.
A true bill. When I open the BBC News app, these are the stories for my locality, London. Only the first is tagged 'London'.
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• Two charged with 2018 murder of teenage girl (England)
• Husband who put body in suitcase guilty of murder (England)
• Police investigate death of London boy, 17, on school beach trip (Sussex)
So, no politics or election-related stories at all, and an emphasis on crime and disaster. When I Google "bbc news london politics election" I get a list of stories that opens in the News app. Only the top story, two days old, fits the bill, and that is 'How the BBC reports polling day.' All the others are between 7 and 9 weeks old, and aren't, of course, about the current election. Hardly a triumph.